Scythebill 17.0.0 is now available. It's a simple release, with just one new feature - the eBird/Clements 2024 taxonomy! As always, download here, and let me know if you have any problems, either on Facebook or by email.
Scythebill
Open-source, cross-platform birdwatching software, and some avian taxonomy too.
Sunday, October 27, 2024
Scythebill 17.0.0 - the eBird/Clements 2024 taxonomy is here!
Monday, August 26, 2024
Scythebill 16.6 - IOC 14.2, checklist printing, and native Apple silicon
Scythebill 16.6 is now available! It's got the IOC 14.2 taxonomy, checklist printing, Birda imports, and a native Apple Silicon version. As always, download here, and let me know if you have any problems, either on Facebook or by email.
October 6 update: Scythebill 16.6.1 includes a couple of new features and several bug fixes.
IOC 14.2 taxonomy
The headline feature is the latest IOC taxonomy - 14.2, released earlier this month. It's a huge revision, with splits ranging the familiar (Red Grouse from Willow Ptarmigan) to the obscure (Vella Lavella Monarch from Kolombangara Monarch), to the big (a 7-way split of House Wren) and the absurdly big (a 17-way split of Island Thrush). And there's some lumps as well - for those of us who've spent time in the Palearctic, all the Redpolls are lumped. You can see the full list of taxonomic changes on the IOC site.
As always, Scythebill will handle much of the work for you automatically. Once you're done, visit the Splits and Lumps report under Special Reports, and see what changed for your list:
Changes to my list in 14.2 |
Checklist printing
A compact checklist for Grenada |
(Scythebill 16.6.1 fixes an error that affected some printed checklists for locations you'd already visited.)
Native support for Apple Silicon (16.6.1)
Birda imports (16.6.1)
Small features and fixes
Sunday, July 7, 2024
Scythebill 16.5 - multi-taxonomy spreadsheets
Scythebill 16.5 is now available! There's new features for creating spreadsheets across all taxonomies in one go, and an important fix to importing. As always, download here, and let me know if you have any problems, either on Facebook or by email.
Update: Scythebill 16.5.1 was released on July 8th - it fixes one bug with multi-taxonomy checklist spreadsheets.
One spreadsheet, all taxonomies
Other changes
Tuesday, May 28, 2024
Scythebill 16.4 - "New for" column in checklist spreadsheets and more
Scythebill 16.4 is now available! There's a "New for" column in checklist spreadsheets, a number of small import improvements, and other small fixes. As always, download here, and let me know if you have any problems, either on Facebook or by email.
Update: Scythebill 16.4.1 was released on June 2nd, with bug fixes to import handling of timestamps and new locations (especially affecting BirdLasser).
"New for" column for location checklist spreadsheets
The last release of Scythebill added an option for a "Lifer?" column when you save a location checklist as a spreadsheet. This release replaces it with a much more useful "New for" column, telling you not just if that checklist species would be new for you but how - whether it's new for your world list, the country (or state), or even if it'd be new for your world Photographed list (the latter only appears if you ever attach photos to sightings).
Import improvements
Other fixes
- If you "remember" a report from Show reports which used the "Times sighted" option, it'll now show the correct number on the home screen.
- Gibraltar is no longer considered part of the UK for the Total Ticks "Country" report. (I don't think any British birders consider Gibraltar sightings as part of their personal British list, but let me know if I've gotten that wrong!)
- You can now export "list-building imports" for eBird. These are described on the eBird site, but briefly, they let you include sightings which don't have an exact day. They'll be imported into eBird with the date January 1, 1900 and a visit comment of "life-list building checklist". These sightings will be included on your life list in eBird, but won't be publicly visible or used as data on eBird.
- Exporting data for eBird might create files which couldn't be imported, with an error message like "Observation time is required for protocol..."; these shouldn't appear anymore.
Saturday, March 2, 2024
Scythebill 16.3 - easier editing of existing visits
Scythebill 16.3 is now available! It adds several small improvements and refinements; in particular, it's much easier to edit existing sightings. As always, download here, and let me know if you have any problems, either on Facebook or by email.
Editing existing sightings
- First, you can turn off including family names, which can make your spreadsheet much shorter.
- Second, you can add a column for whether a species is a lifer. Previously, the only option was marking the species name in bold, which was hard on those of you who like to write spreadsheet formulas.
BirdLasser import improvements
Small fixes
- In some very odd cases, US states whose two-letter abbreviation matches a country's two-letter abbreviation might display as that country. (For example, Pennsylvania would appear as Panama!)
- State/province lists are updated for a few countries, to match updated eBird treatment. The only really significant changes were for France, which changed from 22 regions to 13. (Scythebill will automatically rearrange your records to match.)
Saturday, January 13, 2024
Scythebill 16.2 - small improvements and refinements
Scythebill 16.2 is now available! It adds several small improvements and refinements. There's also a number of new As always, download here, and let me know if you have any problems, either on Facebook or by email.
Update: Scythebill 16.2.1 was released with bug fixes and small new features - see below.
Update 2: Scythebill 16.2.2 was released with one bug fix - 16.2.1 broke the "New for" column in Enter sightings for everyone not using multiple observers.
16.2.1: New for an observer
16.2.1: Another way to create trip reports
New for "Photographed"
Hybrids and sp's of eBird groups or IOC subspecies
New spreadsheet option - "Omit sp./hybrid sightings?"
Fast access to location maps
Better Wildlife Recorder imports
Other fixes
- Some MacOS users with Sonoma (not me!) had reported problems with Save dialogs not showing up when they tried to save reports or country checklists as spreadsheets. I've made a tweak which might help, though I'll admit the underlying problem is still opaque to me.
- The "Total Ticks" report had problems handling mutli-continent countries, like the US, Indonesia, and Russia.
- A very long-standing bug with an error message "IndexOutOfBoundsException: bitIndex < 0" is hopefully fixed.
- An error that some users saw when changing observers should be fixed.
- Birder's Diary imports now are more tolerant of files using different encodings. (I think this will fix issues when using the latest version of Birder's Diary, but I also expect that most users will get better results asking Birder's Diary to create a file for eBird, then importing to Scythebill with that.)
Saturday, December 23, 2023
Scythebill 16.1 - IOC 14.1 taxonomy
Scythebill 16.0 is now available! Its main feature is the new IOC 14.1 taxonomy, with some small fixes. As always, download here, and let me know if you have any problems, either on Facebook or by email.
IOC 14.1 taxonomy
- When searching for latitude and longitude from a location name (especially towns and cities), you'll get results far more often from Google than before.
- Extended taxonomies which don't contain checklists would act as if they supported (empty) checklists, giving users lots of "New for checklist" notices.